CF Montreal fires head coach Hernan Losada

CF Montreal fired head coach Hernan Losada after one season due to missing the playoffs with a 10th place finish in the Eastern Conference.

Previously the youngest head coach in Major League Soccer, the 41-year-old Losada has now been fired by two different teams - Montreal and DC United - in an 18-month span.

What went wrong for Losada, CF Montreal

Montreal finished the MLS season with the league's third-worst offense in terms of goals scored, with 33 in 34 matches.

The team also finished with the eighth-worst defensive record in terms of goal allowed with 52. Their -16 goal differential was the joint-third-worst in MLS.

Montreal struggled mightily on the road, picking up eight points in total and winning points in just four of 17 road matches, with two wins and two draws.

In addition to a lack of top-level talent, Montreal struggled to find consistency with their personnel, and constant rotation likely exacerbated that lack of talent.

Wing-back Mathieu Choinere was the team's leading goalscorer with five goals. Four different forwards - Bryce Duke, Chinonso Offor, Kwadwo Opoku, and Mason Toye - played over 500 minutes, but none of them started more than 20 games or scored more than four goals.

The only player to start more than 30 of the team's 34 MLS games was goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois.

With so much rotation, it was unlikely that any combination of Montreal players would get comfortable enough together to form a successful team.

Montreal's search for a new head coach is underway, according to the team's press release.

Hernan Losada coaching history

After retiring from his 15-year playing career that started in his native Argentina and ended in Belgium, Losada joined the coaching staff of Belgian club Beerschot - the last club Losada played for - as an assistant coach in 2018.

The next season, the club promoted him to the head coach role. He led Beerschot to promotion from the second division to the first division in 2019/20, but left halfway through the following season with the club on a seven-match winless streak.

He was hired by DC United before the 2021 MLS season, in which DC finished eighth in the Eastern Conference and narrowly missed the playoffs.

Oddly, Losada was fired from DC United after a win in the 2022 US Open Cup, but at that point the club was on a four-match losing streak.

He was hired by Montreal before the 2023 MLS season. He was fired on Nov. 9, 2023, after a season in which Montreal got 41 points in 34 matches and missed the playoffs.